Area kids are getting hooked on rugby

By LAURA CATALANO, Journal Register News Service

Sunday, May 5, 2013

There’s a new game in town and, while it’s aimed at drawing in area youth, chances are, it’s a game most kids don’t know much about.

Rugby, while hardly a new sport, has never been widely played in parts of Chester County. But a group of rugby enthusiasts is working to change that. The newly formed Coventry Rugby Football Club held its first home games at South Coventry’s Connie Batdorf Field on a recent Sunday.

With 40 kids playing on two teams, the enthusiasm for the new sport was evident among parents, coaches and team members alike.

But with so many other children’s sports already popular, why introduce a new activity? Organizers say rugby has its own set of rules and techniques that encourages a strong sense of teamwork — beyond what is found in most other sports.

“The culture of rugby is camaraderie. It’s something that builds character. It’s thinking on your feet. Rugby in its perfect form is nonstop,” said Malcolm Bland, who coaches the U-13 and U-15 teams.

Bland, a native of the United Kingdom, grew up playing rugby and later played for Penn State. Now, he wants to pass the sport on to his own son, who is 13, and he wants to make it available to any local child who wants to play.

“My husband feels he learned so much from rugby,” said Susan Bland, who is now the treasurer of the Coventry Rugby Football Club. “It takes so much teamwork. There’s no way you are going to move the ball down the field. You have to work together.”

It was Mrs. Bland who helped get the ball rolling, sort of speak, on forming a rugby club. She introduced her husband to another rugby fan, her long-time friend and co-worker, James Frees. Frees is a member of the Owen J. Roberts School Board, and a former member of the West Virginia University Rugby team. He and Bland began discussing the idea of initiating a rugby club for Owen J. Roberts School District youth about four years ago.

“We wanted to make a positive impact on students who maybe don’t want to play lacrosse or baseball or soccer,” said Frees. “My whole idea was to get youngsters involved who might not fit with another sport. I don’t care how big you are or small you are, we can use every size child in the community. They are all aspects of the team.”

As Frees sees it, one of the benefits of rugby is that players of all sizes are needed, with bigger kids acting as forwards, and while those with smaller builds serve as backs.

But, like Bland, he also believes that students who play rugby gain most from the camaraderie that the game inspires.

“The camaraderie is amazing. When the team is on the field, the team makes the calls, not the coach. It comes down to the whole team acting as a unit,” Frees said.

The Coventry Rugby Football Club is part of Pennsylvania Rugby, which is affiliated with USA Rugby. While Coventry’s club currently only consists of two teams, U-13 and U-15, Frees and Bland hope it builds to include teams for every age group, as well as dedicated girls’ teams. Currently the teams are co-ed.

They’d like to have flag level teams for the youngest players, and they also hope to see rugby teams formed at the high school.

“There are a lot of colleges that give scholarships for rugby,” Frees noted. “If we can teach these youngsters now, they’ll be spectacular going forward.”

Beginning a rugby club posed some challenges for Frees and Bland, who also partnered with several other rugby fans to get things started. One of the coaches, David Holecz, was a founder of Temple University’s Rugby Club back in the ’80s. Another, Bryan Quilo, played for Bryn Mawr until he graduated in 1998.

“I wanted to pass on some of the values the game passed on to me,” Quilo said. “Teamwork, perseverance, and the fact that you learn more from a loss than from a win.”

Perseverance was perhaps particularly important for the organizers who founded the nonprofit Coventry Rugby Football Club, because after they’d put all the work into forming a club, they had to seek out a field. With fields in high demand, they felt fortunate that South Coventry Township was willing to allow them to use Connie Batdorf Field.

Then they had to find players. That was a particular challenge, since many children and their parents simply don’t have a good understanding of the sport.

They put out yard signs and ran a winter program aimed at introducing students to the basics of rugby and quickly found players who were eager to join the club.

“The players are very enthusiastic. They are loving it. They come out and put everything out on the field,” said Bland.

One of those players, Owen J. Roberts High School ninth-grader David Glanski, is now the U-15 team’s co-captain along with fellow ninth-grader Niall Cummins. Glanski’s mother Debbie is pleased that her son is now a rugby player and she’s hoping more students sign up for the team.

“I think it’s a good sport for everyone because it kind of mimics playing in the backyard,” she said. “There are a lot of rules, but it’s a lot of fun.”